"What they haven't recommended, is a single criminal charge to be lodged against any human being associated with youth detention in the Northern Territory," he told the ABC.

"That is a million miles away from the comparison of Abu Ghraib barbarism and torture of which the NT Government stood accused."

He said, at the time of the Four Corners report into Don Dale, "allegations of torture and barbarism" were put to the NT Government but they had not been backed up by criminal charges.

While no criminal charges were recommended, the royal commission's findings did state the commission had referred "a number" of matters to the Northern Territory Police.

The findings said the referrals included potential criminal conduct by youth justice offers and the abuse of children in out-of-home residential care.

The referrals also included allegations of harassment or threats to witnesses or potential witnesses.

Mr Elferink repeated his accusation the ABC's Four Corners program omitted important information from the report which prompted Malcolm Turnbull to set up the royal commission.

"The Four Corners program that went to air withheld vital information from the Australian people and the Prime Minister, which caused the Prime Minister to make a decision to spend $50 million [on the royal commission]".

Mr Elferink maintained he did what he could while in government.

"It does come back down to money, if I had $200 million to spend when I was the minister, instead of the mere $1 million of digressionary funding, I would have built a new child detention facility," he said.

"That is somewhat naïve if you look at the tendering process, the planning process, the budgeting process and the construction process. There is no way you can build a new detention facility in that time".

Former NT chief minister Adam Giles demoted Mr Elferink in the wake of the ABC Four Corners report into the mistreatment of teenage prisoners, while alleging there has been a "culture of cover-up" within the corrections system.

In a statement tendered to the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the NT, Mr Elferink expressed a series of complaints about the way the program depicted youth detention in the NT.

The royal commission recommended banning the use of restraint on juvenile detainees.

When asked by the ABC if his government regretted passing the bill which allowed the use of restraints, he said not at all.

"That bill enabled a panel of experts to use force which was reasonable to protect the staff."